


ruinous

by bokutoma



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Study, Depression, Gen, Gen Work, Graphic Description, Heavy Angst, Isolation, Mental Health Issues, Mentioned Miklan (Fire Emblem), Mild Gore, Sad Sylvain Jose Gautier, Suicidal Thoughts, doing miklan things, i think it could be technically considered gore but it's not violent per se, no plans no actions just ideation, not a whole lot of his family but every mention sucks, tagging it anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:02:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28829337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma
Summary: most days, sylvain is happy, or close enough to it. most days, he can smile and laugh and make something of himself. most days, sylvain beats the odds, despite the bone-deep sadness that eats at him.today is not most days.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	ruinous

**Author's Note:**

> this is entirely unedited. i will probably never edit this. i will probably never read this again. :)
> 
> look at the end notes if you need to know how this will end. i think I've tagged for the worst of everything, but if you're like me, then you'll want to know for sure.

Sylvain is going to kill himself one day.

It's not an active desire; he's gone to therapy, done the work, dragged his limp and bruised body along for three years longer than anyone, least of all himself, had thought he would. Still, there are only three certainties in this world: death, taxes, and his ignoble and indirect demise at his own hands.

Most days, he forgets about it, laughs when he gets phone calls from Ingrid, seventeen and a hell of a lot more mature than he's ever been, and awkward FaceTimes from Dimitri, seventeen and doing a much better job of pretending he isn't suffering his own slow and brutal death. Even Felix - angry, brutal Felix - makes him smile, texting him to inform him of some cruel injustice in the Holy Loog High universe, one that must be righted immediately.

Most days, he can squash fragments of his friends' personalities into the gaping holes in his chest until he feels something other than the fragmented staccato of his heartbeat. He is not lonely. He is nineteen and still living under the yoke of his parents' rule, but he has a job, a direction, and some days, even a passion. When he clocks in, Dorothea greets him with a coffee, and Leonie slings an arm around his shoulder until they have to get to work. He takes their cheer, takes Felix's wit and Dimitri's pleasantness, takes Ingrid's dogged determination and acerbic attitude as the angel on his shoulder. He cannot be lonely when he is the amalgamation of them, tugged into motion with silken puppet strings.

Most days, he forgets that he will be the ruin of himself.

Most days, however, are not every day.

Today, it is a struggle to breathe; the cold Faerghus air has sunk tendrils into his lungs, phlegm choking him as he lays sprawled on his twin bed, the one he has had since he left the crib. He'd had a larger one once, but Miklan had turned it to firewood on another long weekend away from the parents and Sylvain had slept on the floor for a month as punishment.

The headache that blooms between his eyes like a gnarled mass of thorns is not divine retribution, he knows, but some days he hopes that even if the goddess won't do it, his body will know his heart enough to shut down on its own. It hasn't yet, so he does what he knows best: he bails.

One phone call and a reckoning he will have to face up to at some point later, he has called out of work, and he is free once more to rot between the sheets he cannot remember washing, the air in his bedroom hot and sticky and so thick he will drown in it.

"Sylvain."

The voice is sticky too, like flypaper and syrup and sugar laced with anthrax. "Father."

"Should you not be gone for work?" Oh, and the voice is heavy, the full weight of condemnation bearing down between his shoulders and bowing his head. He is right in what he does not say. Sylvain is worth nothing at all. "It is nearing the start of your shift."

Ah, but Sylvain is grateful that there are some boundaries his father cannot bear to cross. That it is out of disdain is no matter; his door stays mercifully shut. "I'm not feeling well. I've taken care of it already."

 _His_ voice is frail, fragile, nothing like what it should be. He wishes he could be angry or self-righteous about the too-loud sigh as his father walks away. Instead, all that washes over him is the grim tide of self-loathing.

He will hear something about that weakness too, he is sure.

But he is not supposed to dwell on the negative. When the maudlin knock of obsession comes raining down on his door, he is supposed to ground himself, supposed to think about things he is grateful for.

When that makes him feel worse, he turns to sleep.

It comes fitfully, punched-out breaths forcing him back into consciousness every hour as his body gasps for air. _Traitorous,_ he thinks, and wills himself back into unconsciousness by imagining his flesh melting into the mattress, blood seeping into his pillowcases as bones crack and muscles slough away. A freak accident, they would call it, and they would be right. It is an impossible death.

It's why he craves it so badly.

Without responsibility, without choice, he wants to be rid of himself. He does not want to die, he promises himself. He only wishes he could start over from birth and would do anything to make that come true.

It doesn't sound so bad when he thinks about it that way.

When the afternoon ticks over into evening, he opens his eyes at last, steels himself, and pads down to the kitchen. There is dreaming, he knows, and there is actively killing himself. Even if the thought of food makes his stomach want to riot, he needs to eat.

But for all his preparation, there is no one in the house. It should not surprise him, not even when he realizes that he has no idea where his parents have gone. This is par for the course for the Gautiers, and he _should not be surprised._

When he starts to cry, he hates himself more than anyone else ever could.

He allows himself three minutes down to the second and no more. When the microwave clock reads _5:57_ , he picks his sorry ass up off the floor and reheats leftovers from Wednesday. When they taste half-bad and borderline foul, he laughs. He wonders if this is what it is like to go insane. He laughs again at the thought.

His phone lights up with a notification.

It's Felix. _hanneman sucks so fucking bad i have to work w the boar i think i am going to throw myself into the sea_

 _can i come w_ , he answers, then adds a cheeky emoji or three because he is Sylvain Gautier, and even if it sounds like he is joking, he has to make sure.

_ugh i guess_

It is the nicest thing Sylvain has heard all day.

He washes his dishes with muscle memory and Dial soap; it stings at a forgotten paper cut, now worried raw by the anxious fidgeting of his hands. His therapist says he should reach out to the people around him. He wonders if Felix would listen, if he would tell Sylvain that his is a life worth pursuing.

He thinks - _knows_ \- he would, but Sylvain doesn't want to worry him.

He checks his phone again, but there are no new messages, and he wonders how many cries for help he can post on social media before someone takes him seriously. _Would_ anyone take him seriously?

With the dishes dry, though, he is free to shower, climb back into bed, and sink into his sheets. There is no sound of his father's Ferrari pulling back into the driveway, so he is blissfully, hatefully alone.

He cannot sleep, but he will make himself, eyes stinging with unshed tears as he imagines all the ways to accidentally fall off the face of the planet.

But as sleep drags at his limbs and tugs at his brain, he prays to a goddess that has not loved him in years that tomorrow will be like most days.

He needs it to be true.

**Author's Note:**

> he lives. he is okay. life is hard, but he goes to sleep and hopes with all his heart that it will be better tomorrow.
> 
> it will be.


End file.
